A former administrator accused of transporting soldiers to kill thousands of people during Rwanda’s 1994 genocide received a 25-year sentence on Tuesday, a United Nations court said.
The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) in Arusha, Tanzania, found Dominique Ntawukulilyayo (68) guilty of genocide.
“The Trial Chamber … convicted Dominique Ntawukulilyayo, sub-prefect of Gisagara sub-prefecture in Butare, of genocide and sentenced him to 25 years of imprisonment,” the tribunal said on its website.
Ntawukulilyayo, who was the deputy administrator of Rwanda’s southern Gisagara district, was acquitted of other charges of complicity in genocide and direct and public incitement to commit genocide.
He was arrested in France in October 2007 and transferred to the UN detention facility in the northern Tanzanian town of Arusha a year later.
In their indictment, prosecutors said Ntawukulilyayo transported soldiers to a hill where thousands of refugee Tutsis had gathered after he promised to feed and protect them.
“Ntawukulilyayo transported soldiers to Kabuye hill, who joined other assailants in an extensive attack, leaving possibly thousands of Tutsis dead,” the tribunal said.
Ethnic Hutu militia and soldiers butchered 800 000 minority Tutsis and politically moderate Hutus in just 100 days between April and June 1994. — Reuters